


Jacked Up

by queenofthelot



Series: Swamp Thing Grad School!AU [2]
Category: Swamp Thing (TV 2019)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Drinking, F/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23523643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthelot/pseuds/queenofthelot
Summary: “You’re drunk, Abby. Just go to sleep and we can talk tomorrow” Alec feels frozen again, still unsure of what to do next. His arms fall to his sides, but his legs feel like they are anchored in place to the floor.“I like you, Alec” She repeats, her voice sounding softer, almost childlike, muted. “I wanted you to know,”
Relationships: Abby Arcane/Alec Holland, Abigail Arcane/Alec Holland, John Constantine/Zatanna Zatara, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Series: Swamp Thing Grad School!AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831399
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31





	Jacked Up

**Author's Note:**

> _Oh, why, why, why do my flowers always die?_
> 
> This is from an AU I worked on with someone in which Abby, Alec, and other members of the DC Universe/Justice League are suffering through grad school together. In this particular fic: the class goes to New Orleans to conduct research, Abby has one too many drinks on Bourbon Street, and Alec thinks the hotel is haunted.
> 
> Also, Abby realizes her feelings for Alec. 
> 
> P.S. Jacked Up by Weezer is really sad, isn't it?

It wasn’t until the elevator had slowly moved up past the second floor did Alec realize this was going to be the longest elevator ride of his life. This was due partially to the age of the luxury hotel Bruce Wayne had insisted on booking for this trip; the hotel might have been fancy, but it was still old as hell, just like everything else in New Orleans. Sure it looked nice, but that didn’t mean the wiring and structure weren’t practically ancient. This was also due to the girl leaning about seventy percent of her body weight into his side. Alec had his arm slung around her shoulder as a walking support. He was surprised it hadn’t fallen asleep on the walk back from the bar. Yet it felt like having Abby Arcane leaning on him in such close quarters was going to take a few years off of his lifespan. Alec felt self-conscious for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

Abby stirred next to him as the elevator doors opened. She blinked slowly, standing up straight and walking out of Alec’s grasp. “How did we get back here?” Abby asked quietly, stepping out of the elevator and immediately heading in the wrong direction. 

Alec followed out behind her quickly, moving to her side, just in case. “Abs, wrong way,” He put his arm out to her again, an offering. 

But she didn’t take it, simply turning her on her heel and nearly falling onto the plush carpet of the hallway in the process. 

Alec caught her, leaning her against him again. 

She didn’t protest. 

They began walking together, slowly, in the right direction. Alec was grateful for the dim lights, and the fact that Abby had (not surprisingly) worn sensible flats instead of heels. 

Although their similar height meant that the lack of distance between them was, again, making him feel self-conscious. 

“Well,” Alec cleared his throat and began to speak quietly, practically whispering down into Abby’s ear, “We started deep on Bourbon Street after we wrapped up that last meeting. And then somehow we ended up all the way over in the French Quarter.” He pauses, thinking, “I think there were about seven bars in between there. And then,” He straightens up, adjusting his arm, “You said you wanted to come back to the hotel, but you didn’t want anyone to walk you. And none of us were going to let that happen.”

“So- so you left early?” Abby looked up at him through a lock of hair that was falling across her face, pinned in place by his shoulder, “You should have stayed, I would have been fine,”

Alec chuckled, shaking his head, “Absolutely not. But since you probably won’t remember in the morning, I’ll let you know why I wanted to leave early,” He lowers his voice, “I read on Yelp that this place is haunted and I want to go to bed when I feel tired, not wired, so I don’t have to think about it all night.”

Abby stops walking, placing her palm against his chest as if to stop him mid-step, “Alec Holland afraid of some ghost stories? You-you’re kidding?” She makes a face at him, smiling, “You’re a scientist, why would you care about any of that stuff?”

Alec shrugs, trying to not think about how standing with Abby like this means he can feel her hand on his back more than when they were moving. “Just because we don’t have proof of something doesn’t exactly mean it isn’t real. But I’m not taking any chances,” 

Abby shakes her head, laughing to herself before picking up their pace again. 

It falls quiet for a moment, but Abby starts again as the pair turn a corner, “I don’t think I’ve been out like that since I was in college,”

“You weren’t locked in your room for four years straight studying? You mean you actually went out and did things for fun? Dr. Arcane how could you neglect your studies like that?” Alec stares at her, feigning shock. 

She shoves him playfully but leans harder into his side on the return, “I’m not going to be much of a doctor if we do this kind of thing again. I don’t think I can handle it as well anymore,” Abby feels like her head weighs 20 pounds, and she places it gently on Alec’s shoulder for support. “You must all think I’m the most boring person in the world, but I promise you, I have experienced some life outside of a lab.”

“You definitely did tonight,” Alec smiles down at her, “I think Zatanna got a nice Boomerang of you on the barber chair thing. That’s going to provide some quality entertainment during downtime at the lab.”

Abby feels compelled to turn her face into his shoulder, embarrassed. “I’m going to have to get her to delete any evidence of tonight. I would hate for it to fall into the wrong hands.” 

“You can trust us,” _Trust me_ Alec almost adds, “I think we were happier to see you break loose for once than anything.” 

Alec stops in front of a door, looks at the one across from it, then pulls a card out of his pocket. He walks them to the door on their left. 

“Drunk Abby is fun. I hope she can join us all again soon.” Alec slides the keycard in, waiting for the green light before turning the door handle and propping the door open with his foot. It’s a challenge with another human being at his side, but he somehow manages. 

The room is similar to his, two beds, a desk, a TV, and stale hotel air. The side table light had been left on and it cast a warm, soft glow over everything. 

Abby stumbled towards the bed on the right, flopping onto her stomach and dangling her legs off the edge of the bed. She immediately grabbed a pillow, placing it over her head. 

Alec tries to remember the last time he was alone in a room with a bed and a girl. It was a few years ago, he thinks, back when he had time for that sort of thing; before his research consumed his waking life. There had been a handful of women across time, each relationship fulfilling in its own different way, yet all lacking something similar. 

He walks over to the side of the bed that Abby is not laying on, carefully pulling the comforter loose and folding it over her. 

Alec looks at her feet still dangling over the edge. Her flats were now precariously perched on her feet, the impact of her jump causing them to go loose. 

He gets down on one knee, gently pulling them off and placing them on the floor at the foot of the bed. Drunk Abby was more delicate than sober Abby, more vulnerable. With the pillow over her head and comforter, she was barely visible to the naked eye. 

He thinks again about the other women, the few of them. There was something different about Abby, he was beginning to admit to himself. Yes, she could be annoying, obnoxious even, her type-A attitude shining through at almost any given opportunity. But Alec found it admirable. She was the brightest one in their group, her hand always being the first one to shoot up high and straight, confident, in a lecture. Even when they had been out that evening she was going on about her research, her dreams never straying far from her mind’s eye. 

Alec Holland might just say that perhaps Abby Arcane made him want to be a better person. But what that person was like, he wasn’t sure yet. 

Alec sighed, standing again and turning to walk towards the door. 

“Alec?” A small voice calls out in the silent room, stopping Alec in his tracks. 

He swallows hard. This isn’t happening. 

Fuck Yelp. 

“H-how do y-you know my name?” Alec asks, scared to turn around to look at the room. 

But Abby’s there. Alec thinks he would rather deal with some demons, even, before letting a ghost at a single hair on Abby’s head. 

Just as he works up the courage to turn his body around, the voice calls out again.

“Alec, can you turn the light off? My head is already starting to hurt,” 

Abby, it was Abby, her voice muffled under the pillow. 

Alec shakes his head to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Let me get you water first, then” He replies, trying to catch his breath. 

No response. 

Alec goes into the bathroom, flipping the switch to find one of the standard hotel glasses. He sees them on the counter, ripping off the plastic wrap and tossing it into the wastebasket by the sink. 

As he turns the tap and begins to fill the glass, he glances at the counter, looking at the spread of toiletries. Well, one person occupying the room had everything spread out, the other had everything neatly tucked away into compact toiletry bags. 

“Abby,” Alec whispers to himself, smiling as he turns the water off and his gaze leaves the bags on the counter. 

He moves back into the main room, walking as quietly as possible to Abby’s side. Alec places the glass within arms reach for the morning. 

Abby turns her head to the side, one eye peeking out from beneath the pillow and staring at Alec. 

It’s like something out of a horror movie, and it makes Alec’s heart stop, but for different reasons. 

“I’ll get the light now, okay?” Alec says softly, leaning over to hit the small switch by the headboard. 

But a hand reaches out, grabbing his wrist. 

Alec freezes, unsure of what to do. But before he can ask, Abby’s voice squeaks out again.

“Can you stay until I fall asleep?”

Alec laughs as Abby’s grip loosens, her hand slipping back into the comforter.

“I thought you would be asleep by now. What? Scared of some ghosts?” He asks tauntingly. 

Abby shakes her head, knocking the pillow to the other side of the bed. 

“I like you,” She says, almost aggressively, matter-of-factly, like an opening discussion statement in the lecture hall. 

She says it right as Alec hits the switch, making him then grateful that the darkness hides the puzzled look on his face. 

“Um, okay,” He mumbles as Abby switches the light back on, revealing herself to be sitting up straight, the comforter half thrown off. 

She’s staring at him intensely and he feels frozen again. 

A conversation in a bar bathroom flashes through Abby’s mind. 

And Alec is half-tempted to throw his phone into the glass of water on the bedside table, removing any nearby evidence of incriminating posts on his finsta account that Abby may or may not have seen by now. 

“No I- I like you, Alec. I like you,” Abby says, her voice sounding scratchy. She swallows, still staring at him. 

He stares back for a few seconds, too many thoughts are racing through his mind to even register a single one. 

Alec snaps out of it.

“You’re drunk, Abby. Just go to sleep and we can talk tomorrow” Alec feels frozen again, still unsure of what to do next. His arms fall to his sides, but his legs feel like they are anchored in place to the floor. 

“I like you, Alec” She repeats, her voice sounding softer, almost childlike, muted. “I wanted you to know,” 

Alec forces a smile, reserving his desire to share the laundry list of reasons why Abby Arcane should not like him, the list that his brain reminds him of at 2 am when he can’t sleep, or when he’s alone in the lab late at night mulling over his day. 

He takes a step closer to the bed, Abby craning her neck to look at him still. Alec leans over trying to keep his smile, as he tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, his fingertips grazing her cheek. 

Abby closes her eyes at his touch, her eyelashes fluttering as she leans into his palm before he pulls it away. 

“Okay, Abby,” Is all that Alec can muster, his voice comes out sounding lower than normal, something shifting in him. 

“Okay,” Abby says quietly, pulling her eyes away from him and staring down at her lap.

“I’m going to turn the light off so you can go to sleep,” Alec moves his hand back towards the switch. 

Abby nods and Alec thinks she looks defeated. 

The room goes dark again. 

“But you’ll stay? Until I fall asleep?” 

Alec nods, forgetting the room is dark, then quickly, “Yes, yes I will.” 

He moves towards the sitting chair by the window, trying to not stumble himself. As he’s about to sit down, the voice calls out again. 

“You can lay down over here, you know, it’s probably more comfortable,” 

Alec snorts, “Probably. But I don’t want to get in your, uh, space”

He hears her moving under the comforter, the fabric rustling. 

“Please?”

He sighs, feeling like he will probably regret this one decision more than any alcohol consumed that night. 

The bed dips as Alec settles onto it, but it’s large enough that Abby barely moves towards him. 

Abby’s face peeks out from the fold of the comforter, her hands tucking it under her chin, illuminated by the light of a streetlamp streaming through the window. 

“Can you tell me one of the ghost stories? You know, about the ones here?” 

Alec rolls onto his side, carefully keeping his feet over the edge of the end of the bed. He props his head up with his head. 

“I think that would just be bad luck,” 

He can practically hear Abby rolling her eyes at him. 

“Can you tell me a story then? Something?”

Alec laughs in disbelief that she could possibly be this wide awake after so many drinks and at such a late hour, “Abby, just try to sleep, please. We still have to work on that proposal tomorrow.”

But then he remembers what she just told him, and he wonders if maybe Abby was telling the whole truth, not just one influenced by alcohol. 

She goes quiet, staring at him again. 

The only sound in the room is their breathing, and Alec feels like he could suffocate. Part of him tells himself this is wrong, but the other part tells him that maybe, just maybe, this is right. 

Alec sighs again, something he finds himself doing so often around Abby. 

“Okay,” Alec keeps his eyes locked on hers, “There’s a couple in the lobby and allegedly they look like they just stepped out of the 1920s,”

Even in the little bit of light, he can see the smile spreading across Abby’s face, that she got her way and won him over. 

“It’s said you can see them get into one of the elevators in the lobby, but, you know, when it gets to whatever floor, the elevator is totally empty,”

Abby nods, listening as a serious student again. 

“And then there’s supposed to be a little girl ghost. They think she died nearby when she got hit by a carriage in the street,” Alec feels himself breathe out as if he had been holding his breath the entire time he had been on the bed. 

Abby shifts her weight, causing the bed to dip even more, and this time they end up closer to each other.

But neither of them really notice. 

It falls quiet again. 

Alec reminds himself that she won’t remember this in the morning, hell if he does either. 

He feels his hand reaching out to her face again, brushing another lock of hair away. She looks almost ghostlike herself in the light through the curtains. 

The heel of his palm comes to rest against her cheek, and his fingers begin to move, stroking her hair with a featherlight touch. 

“When I was a kid there was a period of time where I had nightmares every night. I used to dream I wasn’t a human anymore. I was some kind of weird swamp creature. It was fucking terrifying,” He shivers at the memory. Or maybe it was the ghosts. Or the industrial-grade hotel AC kicking on. 

“What happened in the nightmares?” Abby asks, yawning and blinking her eyes a few times. 

“I don’t want to tell you right before you fall asleep,” Alec finds himself smirking, “That wouldn’t be fair,”

“Fine,” Abby says curtly as her hands disappear under the comforter. Alec imagines her crossing them across her chest, frustrated, “Will you tell me tomorrow at breakfast?”

“Yes,” Alec continues to stroke her hair, his heart feeling heavy. He’s not sure if things will be like this tomorrow; if Abby meant what she said, if he could possibly open up about his personal life again in the kind of way that meant someone actually got to know him. “But what I was going to say is that my mom used to stroke my hair like this. It always knocked me out hard. I’d wake up and it was as if the whole thing, nightmare included, had been a dream,”

Abby smiles softly, and Alec can see that her eyelids are beginning to grow heavy. “Thank you, Alec,” She says, her eyes blinking slowly a few times before finally closing. 

He continues until he sees the rise and fall of the comforter slow more, at which point he reluctantly pulls his hand back. 

“You’re welcome, Abs” Alec says, his voice barely a whisper. 

It’s light outside when Zatanna returns to the room. 

She isn’t exactly surprised to see Alec in the same bed as Abby, but she thought that he would probably have had fewer clothes on in this kind of situation. 

Zee simply smiles to herself as she gathers a change of clothes to take back to John’s room where she had spent the night. 

***************************************************************************************************************************************************** “Zee, I’m a fucking idiot,” Abby blurts out the moment the elevator doors close on their way to brunch. 

“You? An idiot? Are you still drunk?” Zee laughs, looking at her friend in disbelief. “What? Did you see a headline about a world health crisis you can’t figure out how to solve?”

“I told him,” 

“You- what?”

“Remember last night in the bathroom what I told you? I told him last night and I-”

For a moment Zee contemplates hitting the big red emergency button on the panel next to her. 

“Well, you two looked pretty cozy this morning,”

“This morning? No one was in the room when I woke up. You were at John’s, and Alec was… probably working on a journal entry in his room, right?”

“Oh, sweetie.” Zee smiles knowingly, “I went by the room earlier to get some things and you two were there, on your bed, practically spooning,”

“We were not!” Abby argues, mortified. A spread of blush moves across her cheeks.

The elevator doors open and Abby holds her breath, afraid of who might be on the other side. 

But it’s just the empty lobby, and everyone is wearing modern clothing. She asks herself why that would matter, and then more pieces of the night come back to her. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Abby says softly as the pair walk out of the elevator. She adjusts the strap of her bag across her chest, “I asked him to stay, to tell me a story,” And while she would pretend that was all she remembered, she knew there was more that had happened. 

“So what did he say?” Zee’s voice dropped, her eyes darting around to make sure no one they knew was close by. 

They continued towards the doors, smiling at the doorman on their way out to the street. The morning bustle of the city was in full swing, but it was nothing compared to what it had been like last night.  
“He said ‘Um, okay.’” Abby mumbles, looking back at the hotel as they leave as if forgetting something. 

“He said what?” Zee raises her voice, hoping she didn’t hear what she thought she heard from Abby’s lips. 

“He said ‘Um, okay.’, okay?” Abby replies loudly, too loud; a couple of people passing by on the sidewalk staring at her. 

Zatanna stops walking, staring at Abby with a confused look on her face. And then she begins laughing, she laughs so hard she doubles over, holding her stomach. Now more people are staring, wondering what the trouble is on the street corner. 

“Zee, what-what is it? Are you alright?” Abby’s voice is full of concern, her own problems suddenly at a distance. 

Zee just shakes her head as she tries to stifle her laughter. She tugs at the sleeve of Abby’s sweater, pulling Abby towards the brick wall of the nearest building. Zee leans against it, still shaking from laughter. She reaches into her bag, scrambling for her phone. 

“I have to show you something, but you didn’t see it from me,” Zee says through giggles as she unlocks her phone and opens up Instagram. 

“If this is a video of me from last night, I don’t want to see it. I need to eat something greasy first,” Abby delicately rubs a hand across her achingly empty and queasy stomach. “I know they exist, Alec told me,” 

The mention of Alec’s name makes Zee pause, and she breaks out into a fit of laughter again. She types something quickly into the search bar, scrolls, and then clicks a name. 

Zee all but shoves the phone into Abby’s free hand, a Cheshire grin spreading across her face. 

Abby looks at her friend, raising her eyebrow, unsure of what she’s about to see when she raises the phone to her face. 

It takes Abby a couple of minutes of scrolling through and investigating the posts to realize what she’s looking at. It’s Alec, but not. She already has followed him on Instagram, but he never told her about this account. There are only a few followers; Pam and Harley and Zee and Bruce. 

The pictures are either terribly ridiculous or terribly mediocre. She scrolls through to the bottom, then goes up through the feed of images. There’s a picture of Alec and Harley in the lab, aiming mechanical pipettes at each other angrily, the caption arguing the pros of pipettes over any other kind of weapon. There’s what looks to be a series of, well, blurry and overly filtered selfies. The one of Alec without a shirt on a beach makes Abby blush for the second time that morning. A picture of a statue, the sun shining over an angel’s wings, the caption talking about a girl. Abby thought she was lucky, the girl in the caption, to be thought of so highly. 

But then she sees a picture of herself and stops, motionless, her finger hovering above the glass. When they had gone on a hike to collect samples, partners for a small research project in the spring semester. Abby hurriedly reads the comment, smiling to herself, remembering how Alec had excitedly pulled out his phone to play “Dance Music” out loud on their walk back to the car. The two of them had sung along loudly, and not very well, as they were deep in the woods with no one around. Abby’s smile turns into a grin as she thinks back on that moment, how she had felt more connected to Alec at that moment than when they had been working on research proposal drafts for hours in the library. 

“What am I looking at, exactly?” is all that Abby is able to say, her eyes still glued to the phone, scrolling and reading, and scrolling and reading. 

“That is Alec Holland’s finsta.” Zee says with a smirk playing on her lips. She seems satisfied, almost boasting. 

“Finsta?”

“Oh, Abs,” Zee smiles, rolling her eyes, “Like a fake Instagram- like where someone posts really personal stuff and bad selfies?”

“Oh,” Abby says quietly. She doesn’t understand the appeal, at least based on Zee’s explanation, but she realizes that’s probably not why Zee has shown this to her. 

“Did you see the one from last week?” Zee asks eagerly. “I think it’s going to make you feel like less of an idiot.”

Abby raises her eyebrow again, looking up at Zee before going back to the phone, scrolling to the top of the feed. 

It’s a picture of a skyline in the watercolor hues of an early morning. Abby looks at the date, realizing the morning everyone had left for this trip. Bruce Wayne, ever the gracious philanthropist, had held a party at his place the night before, then had used his own personal limo to escort everyone to their early morning flight. Abby remembers crossing that bridge in the morning, her head on Zee’s shoulder as Harley tried to open the bottle of the champagne in the minifridge to have an “orange-less mimosa”. 

She remembers Alec had been uncharacteristically quiet that day, from the limo, through security, even on the plane. Abby thought he would have had least made a comment about the airplane food, but he was silent. 

And she remembers how she had been fairly quiet herself, telling Zee that she was lost in thought about her research project and what she would be able to accomplish during their time away. But really Abby had been thinking about Alec and why he was being so quiet and asking herself if it had had anything to do with the night before. Usually, she didn’t take things personally, but something in her gut told her that his silence had to do with her. Was it something she had said? Abby had thought back the previous night. How she had nursed a beer for hours, how Dinah had forced her into a round of karaoke (“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”), how Alec’s eyes had met hers over and over again. 

As the night began to slow down, Abby secluded herself on a small plush, loveseat in front of a massive fireplace. Even though it was the middle of summer, the Wayne mansion was cold, its marble cool to the touch and the darker corners keeping their shade in the day. She had been staring into the fire, trying to finish the warm beer in her hand, thinking of nothing in particular. 

But then Alec had found her, asking her if the seat cushion on the other end was taken and she had only shaken her head. 

They sat quietly for a few minutes, Alec sneaking glances at Abby, who was too busy watching the flames dance to notice. 

It felt different when they were alone. It always did. Because Alec was different. He wasn’t a lawyer or a doctor, Abby’s usual type in recent years. He was unconventional, unpredictable. Illogical, she had thought to herself on that couch, unsolvable. 

But she always wanted to know more, to understand, to make sense of him. 

Abby turned her face to him, leaning back and shifting her shoulders as she crossed one leg over the other. “Are you looking forward to this thing? Or do you think it’s going to be a total bust?”

Alec had shrugged, mimicking her posture and crossing his arms across his chest. His arm brushed against hers and Abby pretended to not notice how the fabric of Alec’s shirt stretched, the muscles tensing. “It depends on how well we use our time. And the weather. As long as we don’t have to deal with any rain disrupting the landscape, we should be good,”

Abby nodded, listening. “Have you been before? To the south?”

“No. Have you?”

Abby nodded again, “I used to live there, a long time ago.” She laughs to herself, “Lifetimes it seems. But I was always eager to leave. It feels strange to go back.”

Alec’s eyebrows furrowed together, “Why? The mosquitos?”

Abby laughs again, quieter this time, “I guess I did some things there that I regret.” She looks down into her glass, the reflection of the flames making the amber liquid look like it was glittering, “But I think any teenager could say the same.”

Alec watches her, waiting for her to continue. But Abby Arcane stays quiet and her face becomes neutral. 

He relaxes his face and looks back into the fire, sighing, swings his legs up and down a couple of times, flexing his feet. “Well, maybe we can make some new memories this time, you know, to cancel out the bad ones.” Alec looks over at her again, her eyes are nearly level with his. “What do you think?”

“I’d like that,” Abby give him a somber smile, “I’d like that a lot,”. She turns her gaze back to the fire again, leaning her head to the side. 

It lands on Alec’s shoulder, a shoulder in her sleepiness and barely existent buzz she had forgotten was there. 

Her head immediately goes back up, her neck straight, “I’m sorry. I-”

“No! No, it’s okay.” Alec had said, freeing a hand to pat the shoulder near her, “It’s nice to feel useful, especially at Wayne mansion. It’s crazy that Bruce is paying for all this shit. The least I could do is offer a shoulder instead of borrowing a decorative table that probably costs more than my laptop.”

Abby tilted her head again, slowly, cautiously. As it lands on Alec’s shoulder, she can feel his body go rigid. 

“You’re useful, Alec,” Abby says softly, so low that if her lips weren’t next to his ear he might have missed it. “We need you around. You make us smile, you keep us thinking and you pull our heads out of our obnoxiously academic asses.”

“Thank you, Abby,” He says after a few moments pass. Alec turns his head, leaning it down and their eyes lock on each other. 

For a moment Abby thinks he is going to kiss her, but before she can think about how to react, he turns his head back, looking forward again. 

Abby had thought about that moment the whole time on the airplane, she had dreamed about it with her head against the window, listening to The Sunset Tree, she wondered if there was something more that should have happened. 

But with the chaos of the week, the researching, the sample collecting, the writing, she thought she had fully processed it and moved on.

Apparently not. 

Abby reads the caption, then she reads it again, then a fifth, seventh, tenth time. She doesn’t think it’s real. 

“You’re sure this is Alec’s account? Couldn’t it be anyone?” Abby swallows, trying to get the facts before hypothesizing the outcomes. 

“Abby, I swear, that’s his account. Why else would it just be his close friends following it?”

Abby looks to Zee, then back at the phone. She takes it all in one last before clicking the phone to darkness. She hands the phone back to Zee, stretching out against the wall. 

There’s a grin spreading across her face, and Abby’s cheeks are already beginning to ache. 

“So, do you feel less like an idiot now?” 

Abby looks at Zee, nodding quickly, her smile growing even wider. 

“Good. Now can we please take you to your Romeo so we can finally eat something,” Zee asks impatiently, but Abby can tell from her friend’s smile that she’s downplaying her real feelings. 

Abby peels herself away from the wall and walks alongside Zee again. Zee goes on and on about beignets and how she is going to take a whole bag home, but Abby is tuned out. She’s thinking about the night before, and the night at Wayne mansion. She’s thinking about every late night in the library and early mornings in the lab. 

For once, Abby Arcane indulges herself, thinking of other nights and mornings in a future she doesn’t know exists yet. One of waking up side by side, with kisses from Alec and his dog, of coffee dates with laptops and journal articles, of research trips doubling as romantic getaways. 

The cafe is crowded, even for a weekday morning. But the rest of their group is already there at a massive long table, with coffee and proper mimosas and beignets and a breakfast spread that could rival any diner back home. 

“It’s pretty sweet, isn’t it?” Zee asks Abby after biting into her first beignet of the meal. Zee rubs her thumb and forefinger together, trying to get rid of the excess powdered sugar before going in for another bite. 

Abby looks down the table, locking eyes with Alec, who gives her a small wave and raises his mug of coffee in her general direction. 

“I think it’s just, right.” Abby smiles back at Alec, nodding her head in acknowledgment of something Alec has known for a long time, longer than she has. “It’s perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> In summary, bring back Swamp Thing you cowards.


End file.
